- Paperback: 336 pages
- Published: 9/1/26
- IBSN: 9781636143118
- e-IBSN: 9781636143125
- Genre: Art/Music/Pop Culture
Catalog » Browse by Title: M » Making Music: Conversations with Record Producers
Making Music: Conversations with Record Producers
Groundbreaking conversations with the music producers behind the most successful recording artists on the planet, collected from Tape Op magazine
Now available for preorder. All preorders will ship on or before September 1, 2026.
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Forthcoming: 9/1/26
What people are saying…
Praise for Tape Op Magazine
“Tape Op magazine is a font of information and great stories about the craft and history of making records. It’s about making music from the microphone up.”
—Brian Eno (David Bowie, U2, Talking Heads)
“I’ve pretty much read every issue of Tape Op magazine since I’ve known of its existence many years ago. Tape Op is my inside track on the people who make the music that lives on my stereo. These are my heroes and my peers.”
—Joe Chiccarelli (White Stripes, Elton John, Beck, U2, the Killers)
“Tape Op is always full of joy for me. Real people making real music with real tools and very, very little snobbery. Old and new equally valued.”
—Pete Townshend (The Who)
“Tape Op is, without question, the leader in its field.”
—Glyn Johns (Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin)
“What a wild ride Tape Op has been on! You’ve helped the music community in so many ways.”
—Don Zientara (Inner Ear Studio, Fugazi, Minor Threat)
Description
This book is a collection of interviews with people who have made records with some of the biggest names in music. Along the way, they might be engineering the recordings, picking the songs, guiding the singers, picking the best takes of songs, balancing egos, fixing the lyrics, booking the studio time, buying lunch, playing instruments, pushing artists further, writing or cowriting the songs, selecting the musicians to use, overseeing the mixes, and many other tasks. Making records is always a combination of many skills and goals, and the producer needs to have what it takes to make the session productive and the music compelling.
In this book, interviewees include people who have worked with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Public Enemy, Taylor Swift, Doja Cat, Bob Dylan, P!nk, U2, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Wu-Tang Clan, David Bowie, T.Rex, Johnny Cash, the Moody Blues, Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse, Paul McCartney, Dolly Parton, Duran Duran, the Replacements, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Kendrick Lamar, Tom Petty, Thin Lizzy, and Sabrina Carpenter. And that’s just the beginning of the credits these producers—Brian Eno, Finneas, Glyn Johns, Hank Shocklee, Jack Antonoff, Joe Boyd, Jon Brion, Lee Scratch Perry, Lynda Perry, Mark Ronson, RZA, Sasami, Steve Lillywhite, Susan Rogers, Sylvia Massy, T Bone Burnett, and many others—collectively hold.
All of these interviews come from the pages of Tape Op magazine, founded in 1996 by editor Larry Crane. Over the last thirty years, along with publisher John Baccigaluppi, Tape Op has become the world’s deepest archive of conversations about the art and science of recording music, and is still an active, print-based magazine with the highest circulation of any recording magazine in the world.
- Subjects: Forthcoming, Gift Books, Music/Popular Culture/Art, New Releases, Nonfiction
Book Details
Authors
Larry Crane was a home recordist and member of the band Vomit Launch in the 1980s before he moved to Portland, Oregon, where he opened a studio and founded Tape Op magazine in 1997—initially photocopied and hand-stapled. Crane’s Jackpot! recording studio has hosted R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Eddie Vedder, Pink Martini, Spoon, Death Cab for Cutie, and Built to Spill, and he has worked with Elliott Smith, the Go-Betweens, the Decemberists, Sleater-Kinney, Jenny Lewis, Quasi, She & Him, M. Ward, Moon Duo, Team Dresch, Stephen Malkmus, Jolie Holland, Jason Lytle, and the Walkabouts. His latest book is Making Music
John Baccigaluppi is a producer, engineer, and studio owner; he met Larry Crane when he produced Vomit Launch’s third and fourth albums. He came aboard Tape Op in 1999 as the publisher, designer, and co-owner. Since then, Tape Op has become the largest-circulation recording magazine in the world. Baccigaluppi currently runs Panoramic House Studio and has worked with My Morning Jacket, Devendra Banhart, Kurt Vile, Cate Le Bon, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Feist, Deftones, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, 7 Seconds, and Little Wings. Crane and Baccigaluppi have worked with some of the most important artists of the last thirty years, while also running a magazine that discusses the art of making records. His latest book is Making Music